Charity Registration Number/
Unique Entity Number:
T02CC1634C
Charity Registration Date:
19 November 2002
IPC Number:
IPC000104
Auditor:
Foo Kon Tan LLP
The Garden City Fund (GCF) is a registered charity and an Institution of a Public Character (IPC), with its registered address at National Parks Board, Singapore Botanic Gardens, 1 Cluny Road, Singapore 259569.
It seeks to enhance the enjoyment of our City in Nature by working with corporations and individuals to support the development of amenities and special features in Singapore’s green spaces; community activities and programmes that promote and enhance nature and ecology, art and culture, landscape and horticulture, animal and greenery management, animal health and welfare, conservation; and citizen involvement to encourage greater ownership of our City in Nature.
The Board of NParks serves as the trustee of the GCF and has appointed the GCF Management Committee to plan, develop, promote and manage the GCF in accordance with its Trust Deed.
The GCF Management Committee comprises mainly non-executive members except for the GCF Secretary Dr Leong Chee Chiew, who is also the Executive Director of National Parks, Gardens & Nature Reserves and Commissioner of Parks & Recreation.
Between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2023, the total amount of cash donations through the GCF was about $12.3 million.
The 10th and 11th GCF Management Committee for the Year in Review
Name | Current Appointment | PAST APPOINTMENTS | Occupation | ATTENDANCE AT MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE MEETINGS IN FY 2021 |
---|---|---|---|---|
Professor Emeritus Leo Tan* |
Chairman 1 November 2022 |
Chairman since 1 November 2006 |
Retired | 4/4 |
Mr Daren Shiau |
Treasurer 1 November 2022 |
Member since 1 November 2016 |
Partner, Allen & Gledhill LLP |
4/4 |
Dr Leong Chee Chiew* |
Secretary 1 November 2022 |
Member since 1 November 2012 |
Executive Director of National Parks, Gardens & Nature Reserves and Commissioner of Parks & Recreation, NParks | 3/4 |
Mr Gerald Tan |
Member 1 November 2022 |
Member since 1 November 2020 |
Head of Reputational Risk for Asia, Credit Suisse Singapore | 4/4 |
Mr Goh Kong Aik |
Member 1 November 2022 |
Member since 1 November 2014 |
Retired | 4/4 |
Mr Han Jok Kwang |
Member 1 November 2022 |
Member since 1 November 2020 |
Business Development Advisor, Schneider Electric | 4/4 |
Mrs Kirtida Mekani* |
Member 1 November 2022 |
Member since 1 May 2005 |
Director, CISTECH International Pte Ltd | 4/4 |
Mr Guy Harvey-Samuel# |
Member 1 November 2022 |
Retired | 1/1 |
* These members have continued to serve for more than 10 consecutive years. Their wealth of knowledge, services and expertise have guided the charity to reach out to corporates and
individuals for funding support and ensured sound governance of the charity. As professionals in their own right, they have also contributed to a balanced composition in the committee,
with diverse mix of backgrounds and experience to meet the growing needs of the charity.
# Mr Guy Harvey-Samuel was appointed to the 11th GCF Management Committee on 1 November 2022.
Conflict of interest policy
The GCF Management Committee members are required to comply with the charity’s conflict of interest policy. The charity has put in place documented procedures for committee members to declare actual or potential conflicts of interests on a regular and need-to basis. Committee members also abstain and do not participate in discussion or decision-making on matters where they have a conflict of interest.
Whistle-blowing policy
GCF follows NParks’ whistleblowing policy for reporting improper conduct and to address concerns about possible wrong-doing or improprieties in financial or other matters within the charity.
The transformation of Singapore into a City in Nature gained momentum with strong support from corporates and individuals in the past year.
Enhancing our
parks and gardens
UNESCO World Heritage site Singapore Botanic Gardens continued to strengthen its conservation, research and outreach efforts with the help of contributions received through its Give to the Gardens programme.
This has enabled programmes like Singapore Botanic Gardens’ annual fundraiser, Trees of the World, where individuals, corporations and embassies donated and decorated native trees in the Gardens, some of which were in partnership with schools, hospitals and non-profit organisations to spread messages of hope and inspiration. This created a festive display for visitors to enjoy from 4 December 2022 to 2 January 2023. Collectively, more than S$265,000 was raised from 52 corporate donors and 71 individual donors. This included a contribution from Equinix and its strategic alliance partners that contributed S$60,000 to support the Gardens.
A S$9,000 donation also came from EZ-Link through a collaboration to produce four limited-edition EZ-Link cards featuring botanical illustrations inspired by the flora in the Gardens; and the launch of a limited-edition sustainable bamboo charm featuring a Dipterocarpus species seed.
The new Spice Gallery in Fort Canning Park is planted with herbs and spices that were commonly traded in Singapore's past. Visitors can get up close to smell and observe these plants.
In other park enhancement projects, the Spice Gallery at Fort Canning Park was developed with generous support from Nomanbhoy & Sons, one of Singapore’s oldest spice companies. The gallery showcases the history of spice trade, various spice plants that were traded and their importance to Singapore’s economic and social development. Together with an experiential trail, the newly-refreshed space provided visitors with an opportunity to connect with plants.
Over 120 corporate and individual donors came together to deck out the trees around the Singapore Botanic Gardens in festive decoration, as part of Trees of the World, its annual fundraiser event. The proceeds will go towards supporting research, conservation and outreach in the Gardens.
The Greening of Singapore
The Plant-A-Tree (PAT) programme continued to make strong progress in the past year, contributing to the growth of the OneMillionTrees movement. More than 70,000 trees were donated and planted by more than 800 corporations and 5,000 individuals.
Microsoft Singapore pledged to plant 1,700 trees as part of a US$150,000 donation to the GCF. The donation also supported Trees of the World and the Green Wave campaign, a programme for students to have greater appreciation and awareness of the local biodiversity that is shared with the international and local community in commemoration of the International Day for Biodiversity.
Several other organisations marked their anniversaries by supporting the PAT programme. They include Huttons Asia which pledged to raise funds to plant 500 trees to commemorate its 20th year; Energy Market Company that made a generous donation to plant 200 trees to mark the National Electricity Market of Singapore’s 20th anniversary; and Schenker Singapore which pledged to contribute to the planting of 150 trees to celebrate its 150th year.
New supporters who came on board in the past year included Singlife and SAC Capital which donated S$30,000 each towards the PAT programme, and SCDA Architects which pledged to raise S$300,000 for 1,000 trees.
They joined regular contributors such as Geneco which has supported PAT since 2021 and donated another S$10,000 to the Singapore Botanic Gardens Seed Bank in 2023 in celebration of its 5th anniversary.
A fundraiser for PAT was also organised by Mediacorp in partnership with Daikin Industries. It was supported by advertisements on all nine Mediacorp radio stations and a post-event video broadcast on mainstream media in mid-November 2022.
Plant-A-Tree remains a hallmark programme of the Garden City Fund, enabling organisations and individuals to green up Singapore and provide new habitats for native flora and fauna.
Boosting
conservation efforts
OCBC, in its commitment to champion sustainability and mitigate climate change, has pledged to donate S$3 million towards Singapore’s first large-scale project to enhance long-term resilience of mangrove habitats; and increase Singapore’s capacity for carbon storage using the Ecological Mangrove Restoration method. This is part of the bank’s 90th anniversary gift to Singapore, that will enable the development of the OCBC Mangrove Park at Pulau Ubin to create additional habitats for Singapore’s native biodiversity.
In other conservation efforts, PSA donated proceeds from its annual golf event to support NParks’ Plant-A-Coral, Seed-A-Reef programme. A total of S$50,000 was raised from the PSA Golf Invitational 2022, which would go towards improving Singapore’s marine habitat through the transplanting of coral nubbins to Reef Enhancement Units at the Sisters’ Islands Marine Park.
Strengthening outreach
and education
After a four-year hiatus, the Singapore Garden Festival returned in 2022 to a new location at the Orchard shopping belt and Singapore Botanic Gardens. Supporting the event were platinum sponsors ION Orchard and Ngee Ann City, bronze sponsor Natural GRO, Shopee as official e-commerce partner, as well as partners Kayakasia Paddlesports Pte Ltd and Sprout Lab.
Another outreach and education programme, the 2nd World Wildlife Day Regional Youth Symposium 2023, was held in March with Mandai Nature, a non-profit wildlife conservation organisation, contributing S$140,000 towards it. The event, organised by members of NParks’ Youth Stewards for Nature Programme, brought together over 170 youth attendees from 15 countries, including all 10 ASEAN member states, to share their aspirations and discuss how youths can play a part in nature and biodiversity conservation in Southeast Asia.
This programme is one way that NParks, as the appointed CITES Management Authority of Singapore, has adopted to create wildlife conservation awareness and further engage a younger generation to provide platforms for them to come together to participate and discuss wildlife conservation and sustainable use issues.
Situated outside Ngee Ann City, one of the Singapore Garden Festival's show gardens themed ‘In the far, far away future’ immersed visitors in a world of towering vegetation and insects overtaking the space. A total of six show gardens transformed Orchard Road into a lively garden oasis.
Alongside the World Wildlife Day Regional Youth Symposium, the youths also organised a complementary suite of learning journeys, workshops, invasive species management and a crash-course on spotting illegally traded wildlife products online.
The upcoming Mandai Mangrove and Mudflat is one of the richest wetlands in Singapore and a rich feeding ground for migratory shorebirds. It will be conserved as a Nature Park, adding to the existing Nature Park Network around Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve.
NParks’ Concert Series in the Park: Rockestra ® made a strong post-pandemic comeback. Designed to bring visitors into our parks, the event held on 23 February 2023 attracted a 10,000 strong audience to Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park.
Individuals step forward
Besides the corporates, GCF also received support from many individuals. A sum of S$983,000 was received from the estate of Jo and Gerry Essery to support the Singapore Botanic Gardens’ Give to the Gardens programme. Other donors included Ms Tan Poh Joo who contributed S$30,000 to support the conservation of rare plant seedlings at Pasir Panjang Nursery; Mrs Tina Ou who donated S$50,000 to the Singapore Botanic Gardens Herbarium Digitisation project; and Mr Bhavesh Shukla who pledged to donate all proceeds from the sales of his photobook “God’s Own Design – A Photographic Journey Through Nature” to the PAT programme.
Mr Bhavesh has also started a fundraiser “Book-A-Tree” on the giving.sg platform to raise funds for PAT.
Mr Tow Heng Tan, through his foundation Mind the Gap 200 Fund, also made a generous gift of S$250,000 to support a range of projects that included Give to the Gardens, Orchid Conservation programme and Every Child A Seed, an NParks outreach programme to cultivate the appreciation of gardening amongst primary three students.
The year ahead
GCF will continue to work closely with corporate partners and individuals and to seek community support for various projects in the coming year. Among these will be nature-based initiatives in the Mandai Mangrove Mudflat area to mitigate the effects of climate change and improve Singapore’s long-term climate resilience, and the Singapore Botanic Gardens Seed Bank which will play an increasingly important role in plant species conservation.
GCF will also continue to focus on outreach and education through projects such as NParks Concert Series in the Park: Rockestra ®, botanical art exhibitions and the use of the Therapeutic Gardens to demonstrate the healing powers of nature.
Through these efforts, GCF aims to strengthen corporate and community involvement in its work and connect people more closely with nature. Visit www.gardencityfund.gov.sg for more information.
We acknowledge and thank the following donors who have generously supported our City in Nature efforts, including those who wish to remain anonymous.
S$1 million and above
S$100,000 and above
S$10,000 and above
S$10,000 and below
Donations listed above are of a minimum amount of $1,000
We thank all other individuals and organisations who have given to the charity, including in-kind donations.